Alignment question

[davepl]

When I took my truck apart I diagrammed the location of every shim and bagged them.

When I put the truck back together I put all the shims back where they were. I am using the original springs. Weight hasn't changed (except the aux battery is back in).

Still, however, the tires are outboard on the top (ie: they lean out). I can fix that by removing shims, but I'm still curious: why would the alignment change if the shims didn't?

Dave

[Later Edit - I did switch control arms and spindles over to 72 parts so I could upgrade to discs. Probably changing your control arms would do it, though I'm not sure]

[brad_man_72]

Yeah, you changed a bunch of parts. If all trucks were the same and parts didn't wear the alignment wouldn't be adjustable.

[davepl]

I just used a bubble level to get the camber closer to vertical. I could not remove all of the shims, however - I couldn't get the nut on the control arm shaft to torque down without at least 1 thick shim in each location.

One shim is a lot closer than 4, and I'll let the alignment shop worry about it. Toe-in I just held a 2x4 along the wheel and tried to get it pointing parallel with the truck itself. Again, not close enough for a road trip. I only need to be able to get it there without destroying my new tires.